


Break My Rusty Cage and Run

by burglebezzlement



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Black Badge has a terrible retirement program, Episode Tag: S2E1, Fix-It, Gen, Major Character Undeath, Spoilers for S2E1, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 01:38:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11174334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burglebezzlement/pseuds/burglebezzlement
Summary: Black Badge has an unconventional policy on agent retention.





	Break My Rusty Cage and Run

**Author's Note:**

> Moody is the new Black Badge boss (name per IMDB). Eliza — if anyone caught a last name, please let me know? Googling and rewatching the ep didn’t give me anything, but I may have missed something.
> 
> Title is from Johnny Cash's Rusty Cage.

Moody waits, watching the Earp team stumble out of the room. Waits while Lucado stalks off, while the rank-and-file of the Black Badge security team organize to run a sweep of the facility. 

Waits, until they leave him alone with the body. Alone with Eliza. 

He’s administered the antidote before, and his hands are steady as he holds the hypospray to her neck.

It’s still a shock, seeing the way the dead eyes flare, the cat’s-eye pupil black against the orange fire of the iris. He steps back and watches, silently, while her forehead knits together, the skin smoothing over her brow.

She shudders, lungs drawing in air like a drowning victim, and begins retching.

He waits.

“Took you long enough,” she says, finally, once she’s back together. Once her soul has reintegrated into what Black Badge has made of her body.

“I needed Lucado to buy it,” he says.

Eliza doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t need to. He knows where they go, the ones who get sent down under for a temporary stay. Knows what they see.

It’s always been a bonus, having team members know what waits for them in the afterlife. Sometimes Moody wonders if they shouldn’t have sent Dolls down under. If Dolls would have been a better team player if they’d given him a taste of the fire.

Eliza looks over at the contract. “They sign?”

Moody smiles. “They always sign.”

In blood. Fresh blood — the thumbprints on a Black Badge contract never smudge. Never dry. It’s fresh blood, all the way from here to the point of damnation or salvation, whichever one might be awaiting them at the end of their journeys.

If either. Moody looks back at Eliza.

“I’m not doing this for you,” she says. “I’m not betraying Xavier for you.”

“Your motivations are not my concern.”

She glares up at him, wiping blood away from her new-grown skin with the back of her hand. He knows she’s caught, held by her need for the serum that only Black Badge can provide. 

“Come on,” he says. He stretches a hand down, and she glares at him and takes it. “I’ve got a security review, and you’ve got a fugitive to find.”

Eliza doesn’t look at him. He knows how she must feel — she owes Dolls her life. What little is left of her soul. 

But there’s a thumbprint, in her blood, that says Black Badge has a higher claim. And if anyone can hunt down Agent Xavier Dolls, it’s the only other surviving member of his experimental class. 

He smiles. "Good hunting, agent."


End file.
